Dead Space: Paul Shield - Book 1
by Crystal Seeker 466
Summary: This is my take on Dead Space, and is the origin story for a future story on Fimfiction. I will be working on this story first, so I hope you all enjoy.


Chapter I

Zach Hammond, the chief security officer of the USG Kellion, and one of the six crew members of said ship, gave out a soft sigh as he sat in his bunk, looking through his belongings as he did so. Next to him was another crew member named Paul Shield, and he was simply one of the soldiers Hammond picked for the team. Paul wasn't a fully trained soldier per-say, given he used to specialize in medicine and engineering. He wasn't as good as Isaac Clarke of course, but he tended to hang around Isaac to try helping and learning the ropes of a engineer. He was really forced into service, so he's not much of a soldier. Heck, he was still a novice at medicine, it's still his first year of actually being old enough to work, only being eighteen years old.

Zach looked over at Paul as he put a clip of pulse ammo into his rifle. "See, that's how you load the rifle."

Paul simply nodded, scratching his neck slightly. He was a young man, being around six foot five, and wearing a white T-Shirt with dark green cargo pants and military grade boots. He had one of those thicker RIGs than what Hammond has, given he doesn't think it should be any closer. He had a set of military cut black hair too, with red irises. As for anything like weapons or the such, he was given a simple pistol and pulse rifle, though he knows his way around a workbench and is willing to take the time to make one if need be. He'd just need the right parts to use at a bench, and he even bets he has the parts needed.

Zach pulled the clip out of his rifle, nodding as he sat it down. "You should get to know your weapon, you'll be using it for quite a while."

Paul sighed at this as he nodded, then looked over to the door. "Why do I have to know all of this? Why couldn't I have just been an engineer like Isaac?"

Zach folded his hands as he leaned forward, thinking on that. "I'm not completely sure, when they put you in the security field, I wasn't too sure they knew what they were doing. You had higher grades in medical than anything else, so I was expecting them to at least make you a medic, instead they made you a full on soldier, not training you in anything else except for those workouts. They didn't even give you full training, simply put a gun in your hand and said you were our new soldier." He leaned back and patted Paul's back. "Don't worry about it though, I'm letting you train in everything else needed. So don't worry."

Paul slowly nodded in response, looking around a little, then hopping off of the bunk. "Alright, I'm going to look for Isaac, I'm sure he's got some more tips for me."

Hammond smiled in response as he got to his feet as well. "Sounds good, we'll be exiting shock space in a few minutes, get everything you need ready for when we land."

"Yes, sir."

…

"Isaac, it's me… I wish I could talk to you… I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything. I wish I could just talk to someone. It's all falling apart here, I can't believe what's happening… It's strange… such a little thing."

Isaac immediately cut the video off after that, which made Paul raise an eyebrow once he noticed Isaac was watching a video of someone he obviously cared about. "Who was that?"

Isaac looked over at Paul and sighed. "That was my girlfriend, Nicole. She works on the Ishimura, and I hope to find her once we make it there."

Paul nodded in response as he pulled the seat next to Isaac down, and sat down as he gripped his pulse rifle. "This is my first time anywhere besides Earth."

"Nervous?"

"Yeah, this ship is the first one I've ever been on, parents always telling me I'm too young to be on one, ya know?" He sighed as he leaned into the chair. "I just hope nothing bad happens."

Isaac nodded in response as one of the fellow crew members, Kendra, spoke as she walked up to us. "How many times have you watched that thing?" Paul closed his mouth and simply looked off to the side. "Guess you really miss her. Don't worry, we're almost there. You'll be able to look her up once we're onboard." She took a quick glance at her device. "Sounds like you two have a lot of catching up to do."

She then walked over to the windows when they exited shock space, which caused Isaac to look over at Paul. "You alright?"

Paul nodded, speaking loud enough for only Isaac to hear. "She's been mean to me throughout this whole trip. Commanding me to do stuff, pushing me out of her way, and hardly even acknowledges I exist most times. I just don't like her."

Isaac nodded as he looked towards the window. "Alright."

"Deep space mining is a lucrative business, Ms. Daniels. Aegis VII is a gold mine, according to prospector's reports. Cobalt, Silicon, Osmium… Now where is she? There she is. We have Visual contact."

Isaac and Paul looked to where he was looking and they both saw the massive vessel ahead, which caused Paul to stare in awe. "Wow… That's the Ishimura?"

Isaac nodded as Kendra spoke. "Impressive."

"The USG Ishimura. Biggest Planetcracker in her class. And it looks like they already popped the cork."

Paul leaned forward to try and get a better look as Kendra examined the ship. "Why is it all dark? I don't see any running lights."

Zach looked at one of the other soldiers. "Corporal, take us in closer and hail them. And stay clear of that debris field. We're here to fix their ship, not the other way around."

The Corporal nodded as he turned on the comms. "USG Ishimura, this is the emergency maintenance team of the USG Kellion responding to your distress call. Come in, Ishimura."

Nothing was coming in, which made Paul lean back, a little worry covering his face, Kendra ignored this though. "You're going to need to boost the signal if their power is low."

Hammond narrowed his eyes at her. "Yes, we know. Boost the signal." Nothing happened. "More." Again, nothing.

"Never heard of a total communications blackout on one of these things. You'd think with a thousand people on board, someone would pick up the phone."

Just then a radio transmission began playing, but all they heard was gargling and growling. This made Paul gulp as he gripped onto his rifle even tighter than before, taking a deep and somewhat shaky breath.

"What is that?"

Kendra ignored this. "It's a busted array like we thought. Sounds like they're having problems with their encoder. You get us down there and Isaac, Paul and I can fix it. Forty-eight hours max."

Hammond nodded. "Alright, you heard the lady. Take us in. Let's see what needs fixing."

The energy of the gravity field began to pulse around the windows, making the ship begin shaking, and causing Paul to grip his pulse rifle tighter, leaning as far back into the chair as possible.

"Gravity tethers engaged. Automatic docking procedure is a go."

Just then the right side of the windows exploded, sending debris towards the left, and shaking the ship hard enough for Paul to yelp in shock, dropping his rifle as he gripped onto the metal railing next to him. Isaac gripped onto his seat while Hammond and Kendra gripped onto the chairs of tthe pilots.

"What the hell?!"

"Sir! The autodock-"

"What is it?"

"We're off track! We're going to hit the hull!"

"Hit the blast shields! Their guidance tether is damaged! Switched to manual, NOW!"

Kendra looked at him with wide eyes. "Inside the magnetic field? Are you insane?! Abort!"

"NO! We can make it inside! Corporal, I gave you an order!"

The blast shields slid closed as Paul gripped even tighter onto the railing as the ship shook even harder, and a massive shockwave went throughout the ship while it crashed, and the power went offline.

…

Coughing could be heard throughout the shuttle as Paul groaned, finding himself flat on the ground. He pushed himself to a sitting position and shook his head while he heard Hammond speak. "Is everyone okay?"

Paul groaned as he looked over at his pulse rifle, and grabbed it while Kendra looked at Hammond. "What…? What the hell were you thinking?! Were you trying to get us killed?"

"I just saved our asses, Ms. Daniels! If we had aborted at that speed and distance, we would have smashed right into the side of the Ishimura! Now settle down, and let's get to work. Corporal, report!"

Paul coughed a little as he slowly got to his feet, placing a hand against his head, and wincing when he felt a bruise there. He should have worn his helmet, it would have kept him protected from that. So, with a look around, he rolled his shoulders, and glanced down at his security suit. It was a prototype, so it wasn't the safest suit to wear, and he didn't even know why they gave it to him, but he planned to keep it if it protected him well.

After he grabbed his helmet, and slipped it on, he noticed Kendra walk over to him, and began typing on her little device. "Hold still, Paul, I'm synching up everyone's RIG with the ship." Paul glanced back at his RIG, and saw the eight bright blue bars light up. "Okay, we're done. Clean bill of health for everyone."

Hammond nodded as he walked over to Paul, patting his shoulder. "All right. We've still got a job to do. We're moving out.

Everyone except for Isaac and Paul began leaving the shuttle, which made Paul look at Isaac, rub his neck slightly, and sigh. "I guess we're sticking together, huh?"

Isaac nodded at that. "Sounds like it. Hey, this could teach you a thing or two about engineering."

Paul gave out a small laugh. "Yeah, that's right." He shook his head, and gripped onto his rifle. "Come on, let's go."

Isaac nodded in response as they began to step off of the shuttle, and came up behind Kendra while she looked at the shuttle. "You didn't lose power to the port booster. You LOST the port booster! Unbelievable."

Paul and Isaac ignored her as Paul began taking in the massive docking bay. "Man… this place is… I mean… wow."

Isaac nodded at that. "One of the most important ships in human history."

Paul couldn't help but whistle at this. "I've been told stories about it as a kid, and even saw it on TV… but actually being on it is a whole nother story."

Once they made it to the main doors, Zach spoke. "Guess the power's down everywhere. Isaac, get over here and hack the door pad."

Isaac and Paul walked over to the door, which made Isaac show Paul the panel. "Here, watch what I do. It'll help you out when I'm not around." Paul nodded as Isaac began typing down on the door pad. "You press this, activate those, and make sure this bar is blue and not red." The door then switched to an unlocked blue. "See, that's all you have to do."

Paul nodded as he watched the whole process, and was surprised that it was this simple, so he just nodded while Isaac opened the door. With this done, everyone walked into the Ishimura, and examined the large mess. It was confusing to see that it looked like people packed in a hurry.

Hammond looked around. "There should be a security detail in here."

Kendra gave a defeated look. "Yeah, well there's not. There's nobody here, I can't pick up any broadcasts."

Hammond looked over at the security room. "That security console is still live. Paul, you and Isaac log in and see what you can find. Kendra, get that elevator back online."

"Power's dead. I can't."

Hammond growled at this. "Then re-route the damn power!" He stopped himself, and took a calm breath before he looked at everyone. "Look, if we all cooperate, we can figure this out a lot sooner. Let's get that computer display up, Paul."

Paul nodded. "Yes, sir."

Isaac hacked the door open, and let Paul go in first as they saw a blood trail, trying their best to ignore it as they headed for the computer. Once there, Paul activated the status button, and the hologram began to show lots of badly damaged areas of the ship. Isaac gave out a sigh while one of the security soldiers lowered his rifle. "Huh. That doesn't look good. She's taken a lot of damage."

Hammond sighed as well. "The tram system's offline. Getting around is going to be difficult." He looked around. "The air seems to be flowing again. That's a start."

Just then all the lights went out, making Paul yelp in surprise and stumble back, gripping the pulse rifle and looking around for what caused this, but sadly saw nothing.

"What the hell was that?"

"Automatic quarantine must have tripped when the filtration system restarted. Everybody relax…"

They all then heard banging. "What was that? Did you hear that?!"

"I'm not sure…"

Just then one of the vents broke open. "What the hell?"

"I don't know! Something's in the room with us!"

Paul looked through the windows, and gasped as he pointed his rifle at it. "Johnston! Behind you!"

Corporal Johnston quickly turned around, but didn't stand a chance as something stabbed him and bit into him, while Hammond barked out. "Jesus! Open fire! Open fire!" Paul stepped back as blood covered the window. "Kendra!"

"Come on… come on. Got it!"

"Paul, Isaac, get the hell out of there!"

Isaac looked over at the shocked Paul, and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Come on! We have to go!"

Paul looked at him, then saw the door to the side open, before he looked back to Isaac, and nodded. He gripped his pulse rifle as they ran through the door, and began running down the hallway while they heard more roars and gurgles behind them. Once they reached the end of the massive corridor, Paul activated the elevator, causing tthe door to quickly open, and they rushed in, closing the door behind them.

Paul gripped onto his rifle as he leaned against the wall, breathing heavily as he felt cold sweat running down his forehead. "Oh my god… Isaac… Johnston… He's…"

Isaac placed a hand on his shoulder. "I know, just take a few calm breaths, alright? We'll be-"

Just then the elevator door was ripped open, and they saw the grotesque, and gory form of what was… once human, roaring at them, with bone like claws sticking out of it's hands. It roared at them, and lunged, but instead of killing them, the door slammed on it, and began going down.

Paul finally stopped his panic, and pushed against the wall, sliding down to a sitting position, dropping his pulse rifle, and putting his helmet in his hands. "This can't be real… this can't be real…"

Isaac simply looked at him with sympathy, and patted him on the shoulder, but he was just as scared as he was. What the hell were they going to do?


End file.
